Economists, others displeased with CBN’s cash-lite policy

Economists and bank customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s cash-lite policy.

The pilot scheme of the policy was introduced in Lagos in January 2012. In about three weeks’ time, it will be one year since the policy took off.

Saturday PUNCH checks showed that more Nigerians are unsatisfied with the implementation of the policy because of the hiccups being experienced during transactions.

Although some people commended the policy as a right step in the global banking direction, others called for a review and removal of the accompanying bottlenecks.

A former acting Head of Economics Department, University of Lagos, Prof. Kayode Familoni, said the CBN had not showed sufficient commitment to the successful implementation of the policy by putting the relevant infrastructure in place.

He said it was a good idea to have introduced the cashless policy partly to minimise the cost of transaction for banks; inflationary trends and tendency, but he added that the CBN lacked the drive required to make the process efficient.

Familoni said the CBN showed a lack of commitment to the policy with its intention to spend billions of naira to produce N5,000 notes to service a few people.

He said experiences had so far had thrown up the question of whether Nigerians were ready for the policy.

“When you go around the state, you find so many ATM outlets that are not working, sometimes network connections in the banks make it impossible for people to draw money. I want the CBN and its consultants to return to the table and fine-tune the system to avoid policy summersaults,” he said.

Another economist, Henry Boyo, said the CBN’s promise that the cash-lite system would save about 30 per cent of the cost of transactions in banks and make it possible for the banks to extend credit to the real sector at a reasonable rate remained a mirage.

He complained that the services of banks had become poorer, especially as it had to do with encouraging customers to embrace the cashless options.

“It is surprising that the CBN chose a state as big and complex as Lagos for its pilot scheme of a cash-lite policy when a smaller state should have been used.

“It is not certain if the results have been impressive. As for the lending rate, the CBN got it wrong to have linked it to the cashless economy because it has to do more with liquidity,” he said.

In the same vein, the Executive Director, Socio-Economic Right and Accountability Project, Mr. Mumuni Adetokunbo, said the cashless policy had only been adopted by 10 per cent of bank customers, especially the elite.

He said that challenges such as poor network service and faulty ATMs were among the most common hiccups that people had contended with for about one year of the pilot scheme.

A bank customer, Mr. Ade Somide, said there were still many business owners who expected buyers to pay them in cash. It’s either they do not have the POS machines or it is not working due to network problems.

“Recently, I went to buy some new tyres in Lagos and I had to go with over N100,000 cash to pay for the goods because the seller neither had a POS machine nor would accept a cheque payment. The realities on ground show that we still have a long way to go,” he said.

Columnists

"Mr Orubebe, you are former minister of the Federal Republic, you are a statesman in your own right and you must be careful about what you say and about the allegations or accusations that you make and certainly you must be careful about your public conducts."

INEC's Chairman, Attairu Jega cautioning Orubebe over his conduct during the release of the Presidential election results.